Paranoia
by Moixx
Summary: After an incident at a crime scene, Sara begins to see memories of her past she never knew existed. To find out if they really are real or just hallucinations, she must go back and face the ghosts of her past. Chap8: it was all so crystal clear
1. Chapter 1

This will become a very dark fic. So read only if you would be okay with that. Right now it's a Cath/Sara story (no romance) but I think I will change that later on. If you like, please review, it will help me write the next chapter faster.

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The ringing of his cell phone stole his attention away from the dead girl lying before him.

'Grissom,' he stated simply. His ordinary 'Grissom-look' changed suddenly to fear in response to what was said to him on the phone. Catherine looked towards him curiously.

'Well is she okay?' Catherine heard a muffled reply from the caller. 'Well bring her back to the lab then, I'll send Catherine to look after her.' He hung up quickly and the usual look returned to his face.

'Is everything okay?' Catherine asked.

Grissom shook his head in response. 'There was an… incident at Sara's crime scene.'

'The db at the meth lab?'

'Yeah. It's a long story apparently but what Brass told me was that Sara inhaled a lot of crystal meth. She's in a bad state. I said you would go to look after her. I suggest you take her home. She is in no state to work.'

The sympathy Catherine was feeling for the younger woman quickly dispersed and was replaced with anger. 'I have to go baby-sit Sara now do I? I don't remember seeing that on my job description.'

Grissom sighed, 'I know you both aren't exactly friends but it would be best if someone stays with her and I can't take anyone else off their cases. I can handle it here.'

Clearly not impressed, she packed up her kit and stormed out of their crime scene and headed back to the lab.

Brass was sitting in the break room when she arrived, sipping a cup of coffee. At first she didn't notice Sara, it was only where Brass looked towards her that she saw her. In the corner of the room, crouched down, hiding behind the counter.

'We think the perp purposely left a bunsen burner on and left a stash of crystal above it. We're guessing it was a little present for us. Nobody noticed because the smell in that place was so strong. Sara informed us when she was feeling a little weird. By then it was a bit late, I had to send another female officer home to her sister.' Brass paused. 'She isn't having any effects like Sara's. I have never seen a high like that on crystal meth.' They both looked over to Sara who was hardly moving and was not saying anything.

'Well couldn't you have dropped Sara off at home too? There's no reason for her to be back here.'

'Sara has no one at home and with her acting like she is, I don't know what she would do is left alone. I would have stayed with her, but I got a suspect coming in for questioning…' he paused and looked at his watch, '…now. I need to go Catherine.' Catherine nodded in response. 'Oh and by the way. She has gotten a lot worse since I took her here. I would call Doc Robbins because she's acting really different.' With that he quickly left the room.

Catherine stood for a minute in the centre of the room, looking at Sara. She had begun to swing slightly back and forth. 'Sara?'

She paused, waiting for a reply. Sara didn't even acknowledge she was there, let alone hear her. 'SARA?' She yelled a bit louder. Still no response.

Catherine, getting impatient, walked over to her and crouched down beside her. Gently she placed her hand on Sara's shoulder.

'DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T TOUCH ME!'

Startled, she pulled her hand away and stood up. When she was a dancer she has known a lot of people to take crystal meth. Catherine agreed with Brass, she hadn't ever seen a high like this. She walked back over to the table, sat down and pulled out her cell. A number was dialled and she waited for a few rings.

'Morgue,' a familiar voice said on the other line.

'Hey David. Is Doc in?'

'Hey Catherine. Yeah he is. Hold on a sec and I'll get him.'

'Hello Catherine. What can I do for you?'

'Well, I need you to come and look at Sara.'

'Is something wrong?'

'Yeah, she got a bit high on crystal meth.'

'Well I suggest you take her home and give her lots of fluids then put her to bed.'

'That was going to be the plan, but she is acting a bit weird. This isn't the textbook high on crystal meth, I think something is wrong.'

'Hold on. I'll be right up.'

The call ended and Catherine sat, waiting patiently for Doc Robbins.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you so much for everyone who has been reading and a special thanks to those who have reviewed. They really mean a lot to me so thank you. xxx

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_The call ended and Catherine sat, waiting patiently for Doc Robbins._

She didn't need to wait that long. After about 15 minutes she heard the familiar click of Doc Robbins' crutch along the corridor.

He presumed they would be in the break room. When he found Catherine there, his first thought was where Sara was. Then he saw her. This was defiantly not the usual effect of crystal meth. Usually the person would be hyper and excited, unable to keep still. Sara sat motionless, only with a slight sway.

'You were right to call me Catherine. Something isn't right.'

She nodded in reply. 'She won't let me touch her. So I don't know if she'll let you.'

The Doc approached Sara slowly, so as not to frighten her.

'Sara?' Again, she didn't respond. Doc Robbins reached out to her forehead to check for a fever. This time Sara did allow someone to touch her. Her forehead was red hot, which was common in users.

'Are you going to be staying with her until she comes down?'

'I guess so. Is there anything I need to know?' Catherine replied.

'The usual effects of crystal meth is a feeling of euphoria but I don't think that's the case here. She might start having hallucinations, paranoia and she might become aggressive.'

Catherine sighed. 'Lucky me.'

Doc ignored her comment. 'Sadly if this does occur, I can't give her anything to calm her down, it may make things worse.'

'How long will this last, Doc?'

'It all depends on how much she has in her system. That's difficult to determine now. It should all be over in a day.'

'So will I just take her home to bed?'

'I doubt she will sleep. Another effect of 'ice' is that they will stay awake for long periods of time. But yes, take her home. I doubt Ecklie will want one high, unresponsive CSI in his lab.'

Catherine smiled. 'Thanks for all your help Doc.'

'No problem Catherine. If you need any more help, check the internet. It will probably give you more information than I can.' They said their goodbyes and once again Catherine was left alone with Sara.

With a lot of struggling, Catherine finally got Sara to stand up. 'C'mon Sara. I'm taking you home.'

Surprisingly, guided by Catherine, she was able to walk out to the car without trouble. She was still unresponsive though, which worried Catherine greatly. Getting Sara into the car was a bit more difficult, but finally Sara was finally inside the back seat, as Catherine was afraid in case Sara decided to grab the steering wheel or something.

Catherine decided to take her back to her own apartment, as she might get anxious if she was taken somewhere she wasn't familiar with. She had only been to Sara's apartment a couple times so it took a little longer to find than she hoped. Once they arrived, Catherine fished out her keys out of Sara's bag and opened the front door to her apartment building. To get Sara into her apartment was fairly easy and she even seemed to notice her surroundings.

Inside her apartment, Catherine left her sitting on her sofa and went looking for a glass to fill up with water. _Give her lots of liquids,_ Doc Robbins had said. So the glass she found in a cupboard was filled from the tap with cold water and placed on the coffee table in front of Sara.

'Thank you, Mom.' Hearing Sara talk surprised Catherine but having her called mom stunned her.

'Um...' she wasn't sure what to say, 'your welcome.' Sara reached out to the glass and gulped down the water.

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So that's the second chapter. I know that these are just short chapters right not. Hopefully the next one will be much longer. Please keep reviewing. 


	3. Chapter 3

**_WARNING!- _**this chapter contains hints of sexual abuse and domestic abuse.

_Italics _represent the hallucinations. Normal text is what is actually happening. The hallucinations may start to get confusing. So I apologise in advance.

Thank you to; reviewers, readers and Pesi for allowing me to steal her idea. xxx

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John Doe. Gunshot would to the back, through and through. Took me a while to find the bullet, as it bounced off the metal door into a stack of the drugalready in baggies.

Being around so much crystal meth brought back a lot of memories for me. I used to take it a lot. When I was much younger though. In college a boyfriend introduced it to me. It made me want sex constantly, and it was really fun. But I used it so much; I got really bad side effects off it. The liberated feeling I felt was replaced with hallucinations and paranoia, which really scared me. I stopped because of them which thankfully didn't leave any lasting damage.

I spent hours at the crime scene, collecting evidence, documenting it, taking photographs. When I started to feel weird I knew I was high. I remember glancing around quickly trying to source where I got high from. At first I thought it was the stack where I removed the bullet. They were stored in bags, but the bullet had pierced a couple of them.

I notified Brass and he sat me in his car. By then, everything was going so fast. My head was spinning and I could hear only muffled voices.

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_I was standing on a beach. The sun was setting, and the sky was a marvellous shade of orange and pink. The tide was out, so the deep blue ocean was further away than usual. A dog was barking along the beach, my dog. Rocky. He was my birthday present when I turned 6. He was just a little puppy when I first got him. Now he is 6, but he still acts like a puppy sometimes._

'Sara. I'm going to take you back to the lab.'

_The lab? What's that? I turn and see my father yelling at me. I laugh; he always says weird stuff when he drinks. He must mean home._

_Except we don't go home. We walk off the beach, putting a leash on Rocky, and walk towards town. Mother is out tonight and father needs to look after me. I remember he said we would go to the beach, but he never said after we would go into town._

_We keep walking until we reach the bar. It's getting darker now, but he still goes inside and leaves me waiting outside. Rocky is still with me, so I have some company. A few drunken men come out of the bar and stumble past me. I try my best to ignore them but some of them say things, nasty things my mother tells me I should never say. Some of them touch me, but Rocky barks and scares them away. _

_Father comes out after a few hours. I can smell the alcohol and smoke off him and he can hardly walk. 'Let's go home Sara.'

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_

_I am in my bed, pretending to sleep. It never works. He always wakes me up anyway. It always happens when he drinks and tonight is no different. The door creaks open and he stumbles inside, smelling slightly of coffee. My eyes stay clamped shut but he starts shaking me awake. 'Please daddy. Not tonight.' The pleading doesn't stop him, it never does. I remember him lifting up my nightgown, but the rest I blank out. _

_My mother came home shortly after he left my room. She always kisses me goodnight when she comes home. I pretend to be asleep again; I don't like her asking why I have been crying. I would tell her. I really want to tell her, but it's mine and daddy's secret. He told me not to tell anyone or something bad would happen. I believed him. She put her hand on my shoulder and I freaked out. I started screaming for her to not touch me. She then left my room. I never got my kiss goodnight.

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_The next day I woke up not feeling very well. I remember having waffles for breakfast. I later vomited them into the toilet. I heard mother calling the doctor on the phone in the next room. I don't like the doctor much. He is an old man with a cane and he always smells of disinfectant. _

_I was in my bed by the time the doctor arrived. _He came up to my room and felt my forehead_. I knew I didn't have a fever. 'It's probably a stomach bug. Keep her in bed for a few days.'_

_The next morning I vomited again, and the next morning. For a whole week I vomited after my breakfast but felt fine for the rest of the day. My mother dismissed it as growing pains. So I did too.

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_Mother and father have always fought, ever since I could remember. But its been getting much worse lately. Mother likes to throw things, father likes to punch things. She has been covered in bruises a lot. Sometimes if I'm in the room he'll hit me too. If I have bruises where they can easily be seen, he grounds me, probably so no one can see what he did. It's the summer vacation so I don't have any school to go to. Usually summer is the busy time but the B & B isn't getting a lot of business this year so they fight about lack of money. That doesn't stop them drinking though. Father has been coming into my room much more lately. I hate mother for not stopping him but I hate myself more for not telling her.

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For those people who got confused, the hallucinations are from Sara's childhood. If you are confused about something leave a review please!

I would really appreciate reviews. I have already had a lot on the previous chapters and I am very grateful for those who review. So thank you. I hope you continue reading.

I am unsure of when the next chapter will be updated, as the next week will be a bit hectic for me. I promise I will not forget about this story (sorry to those who read my others). Maybe a lot of reviews will make me work faster.

More hallucinations in the next chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

This whole chapter is some more hallucinations of Sara. So please enjoy and remember to review.

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There was a baby. I held a newborn baby girl wrapped in a white towel in my arms. She was crying, and I was trying to comfort her. I remember my mother was also in the room. It was our living room. I sat on the floor, surrounded by towels and she sat on the sofa across from me. She refused to look at me, and stared at the baby.

I had just turned thirteen a few weeks before. At school we had just began to learn about sex and the consequences of not using protection. I knew the baby was God's way of punishing me, and I guessed mother knew that too.

'Who is the father Sara?'

I told her everything. I ignored my fathers threats of something awful would happen and I hoped that God would forgive me as by telling someone, I was asking forgiveness. Her face grew angry, and I became scared. After I finished the story, she began to cry. She walked out of the room and I wanted to follow her, but it hurt to stand.

Father came home much later and I was in my room. The baby was lying on the bed sleeping. So I crept down the stairs and listened to the yelling from outside the door.

'I never touched her Laura I swear to you!' defended my father.

'So she just had a baby herself then!' screeched back my mother. 'She's thirteen! She's too young to have to look after a baby! What would the town think!'

'_I don't understand Laura! She didn't even look pregnant!'_

_My mother who used to be a nurse calmly explained to my father that if a baby grows upwards, towards the spine there is sometimes no bump. _

_The yelling continued for sometime. I must have fallen asleep because I couldn't remember anything else until the door swung open and my mother walked out towards the kitchen. Father was shouting and mother was crying. I stood up and walked towards her, intent on giving her a hug but she pushed me away. She opened the drawer and pulled out a knife. It was the big, black knife I was always warned not to touch because it was dangerous. _

_At first I thought she was just going to slice bread, but when she strode past me back to my shouting father, I knew something was going to happen. I ran after her into the room where they were both standing facing each other. The colour from my fathers face drained away and my mother knuckles had turned white from grasping the knife too hard. _

'_Laura, don't do something you are going to regret.' _

'_I'm not going to regret this.' _

_She lunged forward, cutting his arm a little. My father screamed at me to get out, but I didn't move. I couldn't move. The next time she stabbed him, the knife went through his stomach. I started screaming as loud as I could to get her to stop. But she kept stabbing him. The blood went everywhere, I was covered in it, the room was covered in it and my mother was drenched in it. _

_Even when my father was on the ground and not moving, she still kept stabbing him. I knew he was dead. But I still kept screaming for my mother to stop.

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So that was a short chapter, but at least it's something to keep you going until I can update the next time, which should be about Saturday. So please review.


	5. Chapter 5

I'm sorry this took to long to write. I got distracted with a new book. This is another short chapter but I still hope you enjoy. Please remember to review!

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Two hours had passed since Sara was taken home from the lab. Catherine spent the time drinking Sara's coffee and watching her television. She got bored after a while so flicked it off and decided to nosy about her apartment. She went into Sara's bedroom to start in her closet. Since Sara had came to Vegas she had wondered if all the clothes she owns are for work

The pine doors of the closet were already open when she went in and Catherine sifted through the large amount of dark tops and jeans. Towards the back, she came across something she had never seen Sara in before, a men's shirt. This became the fuel for Catherine. Automatically she assumed that Sara had a boyfriend, so she went into the bathroom. There was only one toothbrush in the holder. The toilet seat was down. The cabinet only held items Sara would use. Catherine's curiosity rose greatly. She always hated not being able to solve a puzzle.

Temporary she gave up, and decided to simply ask Sara when she began to respond again. To distract herself until then she started to snoop through her desk.

She was in the middle of leafing through some papers when Sara screamed. The papers fluttered to the ground and Catherine froze thinking she had been caught by the younger woman invading her privacy.

'STOP! STOP!'

The urgency in Sara's voice told Catherine that it wasn't her who caused her distress. The blond swivelled round quickly to discover Sara was exactly where she left her. Her eyes remained closed so Catherine assumed she was dreaming.

Catherine picked up the papers that had scattered about the floor and gave up on her snooping. Sara continued screaming and it really scared Catherine.

'STOP! YOU'RE KILLING HIM!'

She remembered back to what Doc Robbins has said. He couldn't do anything about the hallucinations. She sighed loudly and lay down on Sara's sofa. Catherine did her best to block out Sara's screaming and eventually; she fell into a restless sleep.

When she awoke, she got scared. Her first thought was 'where am I?' Once she mentally answered that question, her second was 'where the hell is Sara?' The chair where Sara sat the night before was now unoccupied and Catherine began to panic. She sat up way too fast and had to wait for the dizziness to pass before standing up. But once she did finally manage to stand she didn't need to look for Sara.

'Well finally. I thought you would never wake up. Now you can explain to me what you are doing in my apartment.'

Catherine spun round to discover Sara was in her kitchen, in the middle of drinking coffee. The blond smiled to herself, glad that the 'episode' from the night before was over.

'Grissom told me to take you home after last night.'

'What happened last night?' she replied confused.

'You got high on crystal meth at a scene. What's the last thing you remember?'

It was silent for a while in the room while Sara thought. 'Brass put me in his car and said he was taking me back to the lab. Then it felt like I was dreaming.'

'Yeah. You were hallucinating.'

Sara became silent again. She stared past Catherine at nothing in particular. At first Catherine thought she had started hallucinating again, but then she realised. She was remembering.

'What happened?'

Sara looked back towards her. 'I remembered everything.'

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Review please!


	6. Chapter 6

Sorry for the wait!

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'Wait. You're telling me you had a baby?' Sara would have considered the shocked look on Catherine's face funny in different circumstances.

'Yes. I think so.'

'How old were you?'

'About thirteen.'

'You were thirteen! Wouldn't you remember if you had a baby?'

Anger crossed Sara's face at Catherine's response. 'Well you would think I would remember watching my father be stabbed to death but the truth is I didn't until now.'

'Well maybe you weren't even there Sara. That's why you couldn't remember. You were hallucinating!'

'I was there Catherine. I didn't remember him dying, but I remember having to wash his blood off me. I remember that I didn't talk to anyone for a year. I remember the trial.' She took a deep breath before continuing. 'The lawyers kept saying what kind of mother would murder her husband in front of their daughter.'

'You didn't talk for a year?'

Sara nodded her head. 'They put me in a psychiatric hospital for a few months. For a thirteen year old girl that was terrifying. Hardly anyone spoke in there. Occasional there was a person who couldn't stop repeating words. There was one girl who everyone called Dorothy. She was about my age and she couldn't stop saying 'There's no place like home.' Even in her sleep. You could hear her from any room. It seemed much louder at night.'

She looked away from Catherine as she wiped away the tears falling down her face. Catherine, who was completely shocked by the sudden openness of Sara, also had tears sliding from her eyes.

'She committed suicide a few weeks before I left and was taken into care.' She paused while she used her hand to dry her cheeks. 'I guess she really wanted to go home.'

Catherine stepped forward and took Sara in a tight embrace. She sobbed violently into her shoulder as Catherine did her best to comfort her. It took a while to calm her down, but eventually she stopped crying.

'Ok. Well let's just say you did have a baby. Where is it? What was its name? Show me proof Sara. I follow the evidence and right now, I don't think you have any.'

Both women stood silently for a moment trying to figure out what the next step would be. Catherine, as a mother, did not believe for one second that Sara had a baby. It was one thing that she forgot her father's death but that could easily be explained as Posttraumatic stress disorder. It was also believable that she suppressed the memory.

'12th of February,' Sara whispered quietly.

Catherine looked confused. 'What?'

'It was the day my father died.' Catherine watched as the colour drained from her face and the smile faded. Quickly she rushed over to the sink and promptly vomited. 'Oh god.'

Catherine rushed over to her and held her hair out of her face. 'What is it? Do you remember something else?' She nodded.

'That was why she killed him.' Her eyes, that were already red and puffy from crying before, became glossy with more tears. 'It was my fault. I had his baby and she killed him for it.'

'You're father's baby?' Catherine stood shocked for a moment. 'He abused you?'

Sara avoided eye contact with Catherine as she nodded slowly.

'I'll help you find her.' Sara was shocked by Catherine's statement. Catherine even shocked herself because deep inside she knew that there was no baby. There was no forgotten daughter. She also knew, Sara would need full support to realise that and pick up the pieces.

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Sorry again for the delay, I got distracted with school this time. I do know that this was another short chapter and I am sorry about that but I felt the end was a suitable end and I didn't want to add anything else to ruin it.

I don't know when the next chapter will be ready because truthfully, I haven't started it. I feel that there aren't enough people really following this story (except those who review- thanks to you people btw!) so I haven't exactly pushing myself. So please review if you want a quick update.


	7. Chapter 7

Catherine did as she promised, and tried her best to help Sara. She had her doubts, a strange hallucination while high on meth hardly seemed like the greatest of evidence to follow. There was no proof of Sara's pregnancy, no proof of any child, nothing.

The reports from California surrounding Sara's father's death proved that. For the first time, Sara read them. Hoping the graphic details would jog her memory, would reveal to her what she had repressed 20 years previously. There was no mention of a baby. She was thirteen when her father was killed in front of her by her long abused mother. There was no trial, her mother pleaded guilty to the murder and was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Young Sara went to the psychiatric unit and then onto foster families, and never saw her mother again.

The hospital burned down 7 years ago, destroying all records of patients in the past, forever losing what little evidence of Sara existing in that place. Gone went the files and the history notes what could have provided such vital clues to help Catherine convince Sara what she dreamed wasn't real, what was just created from the abnormal high of a powerful drug.

That night changed Sara. Just three hours after remembering the previous night's hallucinations, she phoned Grissom and requested an undisclosed amount of time off. Of course they were worried, she seemed obsessed with the idea that somewhere out there a child existed with her blood pumping through her veins. Yet the scientist in the rest of the CSI team told them the likeliness of this event was terribly slim. Police records are accurate, and a baby at a crime scene would have been hard to hide from the authorities, even back in the day of inferior technologies and less thought for preserving evidence. Yet Sara had said the baby was there at the time of her father's death, the police were there a short time later and babies don't just disappear into thin air.

But Sara was adamant. 'I know what I saw last night. It was as if the cloud surrounding my past just lifted, it was all so clear and vivid. I couldn't have made it up.'

So Grissom agreed the time off and Sara began sifting through the records of her father's death, her hospital admission and the statement of that night from her brother and mother.

Sara was examined that night medically, no SART was done, just the general documenting of any bruising and contusions covering her body. Catherine read the report too, she had no idea that Sara was beat as much as her mother was. She felt guilty for not understanding why, on so many previous occasions; Sara was visibly upset from domestic violence cases. No less that 32 bruises covered thirteen year old Sara Sidle on that night in February, as well as a large 4 inch gash in her left arm, from where it was documented she had tried to grab the knife from her mother. Craig Sidle, the older brother was not at home on that night, he was at some drunken party a few miles away. But his statement painted the picture of the typical Sidle home on any given day, an alcoholic father, physical fighting, and a mother trying to keep her family afloat financially and mentally. There was no mention of a pregnancy or a baby born, further reinforcing the generic opinion that Sara had somehow gone completely crazy.

In her mind, Sara believed a conspiracy existed. Her brother was a smart boy, he must have known, he just didn't tell the police. Maybe they were protecting her daughter. Their mother must have told him what had happened, maybe in a police cell or interview room or on a visit to prison. She just couldn't have not told him that the reason his father was killed was because he raped Sara.

Before telling anyone what she planned to do, out of the realisation they would all convince her against it, Sara had gone onto the internet and booked herself into the next flight to California. To pay a visit to her brother she hadn't seen in nearly two decades…

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Sorry for the very, very long wait. I'm not so much into CSI anymore, but I felt on giving this story another shot. It was started 2 years ago, so i will continue as though it is still 2 years ago in csi world. As always, review and let me know what you think. I will try and update this again soon. No more 2 year waits, i promise.


	8. Chapter 8

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It wasn't until Sara boarded the plane, the true extent of what she was doing hit her. All through her life and career she had been taught to follow her head, and right now, her head was telling her how crazy this was. She had listened to Catherine's point on how there was nothing to back up what she claimed had happened, all the other CSI team agreed. They were worried for Sara, knowing that actively searching for disturbing answers would have a negative impact on her health. Sara had never received counselling for the rape she had suffered from her father for many years, she did not have the skills in place to allow her to deal with the details she had hoped travelling to California would provide.

Sara had little contact with her older brother. At seven years older than his little sister, they had not been that close as children, and after the death of their father he had gone to live in Los Angeles, whilst Sara was moved from place to place. It was difficult to keep contact.

Even now, Sara had a busy career in a different state and Craig Sidle threw himself into family life, supporting his wife and children and trying to be the best he could be. There was still the occasional letter, a phone call around the holidays and cards at birthdays. He did not know Sara was coming to see him.

When the plane reached California, Sara firstly got a cab. She had left on a whim, without packing anything with her, so she had no luggage to collect. Once telling the driver her brother's address, she switched back on her phone and was unsurprised to see no less than seven messages from Catherine. Before she even had a chance to listen to any of them, her phone rang again, flashing up with Catherine's name on the screen.

'Hello Catherine,' greeted Sara.

'WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?' a loud voice bellowed in response. 'WE HAVE BEEN SO WORRIED, WE THOUGHT YOU WOULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING INCREDIBLY STUPID.'

'Sorry Cath, tell everyone I'm sorry. I'm in California to see my brother. Maybe he will know something.'

The woman in Las Vegas sighed. 'Sara… I don't know what else to tell you. We have searched through hundreds of reports. There was no baby; there was no trace of you ever having a child. Why don't you understand this? Listen to the CSI inside of you for once during this ordeal.'

'I don't expect you to understand Catherine. But this happened, I just know it did.'

'Okay then, well I'm coming out there too. I'll book a flight and phone you when I arrive. You need support there Sara, if you truly believe you know what happened, then I will come and help you.'

Sara choked back tears, 'thank you Catherine, I will see you soon.'

Sara never expected Catherine to fly to California to help her. She was fully prepared to go through this alone, but she guessed that having someone with her would help her keep a cool head and to make sure she wasn't letting anything get on top of her. She understood the worries the CSI team felt for her. It was very unlike her, Sara knew that more than anyone. But it was hard to explain how for her entire life there was a foggy memory that always stayed with her, yet never was clear enough for her to know exactly what happened. She dreamed about it at times, seeing little snippets of facts, or perhaps were not facts but were pieces of evidence from other cases she jumbled into thinking were from her own. Yet now she knew the truth, the years from wondering what had happened were now so crystal clear, she imagined it difficult to remember what she had assumed had happened so long ago.

The car drove on, through the busy streets of Los Angeles, past the homeless people begging on the streets and the glitzy department stores and designer handbags. She had vacationed once in the city when she was about six, happier times for the Sidle family. Before her father had lost his job and began to drink, he was the model husband: taking Sara and Craig to the park whilst their mother went shopping for treats for her family. It was the happiest moment Sara could think of, the only family vacation they ever had.

Yet now, Los Angeles was a different place. The cab drove through poor area after poor area. And then it stopped. In the middle of a rundown neighbourhood, overgrown gardens and stray dogs. Dirty children ran across the street, kicking grey soccer balls to each other and lazy mothers smoked on doorsteps drinking coffee from cracked mugs and gossiping with each other. Sara's brother's house was quiet and dark. No children played in his yard and no women met on the doorstep. At first she wondered if this is where he still lived. She kicked herself mentally for not phoning ahead to tell him she was coming, what would she do if they weren't in?

She paid the cab driver and got out the car. She knew the women from the neighbourhood were staring at her, but she walked up the cracked, weeded path and knocked upon the cheap wooden door. No answer.

'What'd ye want?' a voice from behind her asked.

Sara spun around, and was confronted by a rough looking woman, not much older than herself. Her hair was frizzy and tangled, her face wore not a trace of makeup and her clothes were cheap and wrinkled.

'Eh? This is my house. What is it ye want?'

'Oh hi. I'm Sara Sidle, Craig's sister. Is he home?'

'Craig's sister? From Las Vegas? What the hell ye doin' here? Does he know ye are comin'? He ain't home.'

'I'm just paying a visit, I was in town and thought I would drop by. I'm sorry I never phoned ahead; it was a last minute arrangement. Will he be long?'

The woman looked suspicion of Sara arriving so suddenly. 'Hm... well I'm his wife, Linda. You better come in.'

* * *

So will Sara find the answers she is looking for? Where is Craig Sidle? What really did happen to her 20 years ago?

Chapter 9 will follow soon. Please review.


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